Lothlórien (ending of Book II) (Patreon)

Our path out of Wilderland takes us at long last to Lothlórien, “the heart of Elvendom on earth.” The elvish forest city is perhaps the most singular place in eastern Middle-earth. The River Silverlode flows from the Dimrill Dale into the Anduin, cutting “into the lower lands” of southwestern Wilderland, “until it was lost in a golden haze.”

Unlike Mirkwood, Lothlórien’s elves are relatively free from the outside world’s destruction. Other kingdoms come and go, while Galadriel and Celeborn’s domain long survives on its own. It’s not quite an eternal city — by the time Arwen Undómiel “laid herself to rest” on Lórien’s hill Cerin Amroth, “the land was silent.” Lothlórien is a barometer for elvish life in Middle-earth. When Galadriel and her company have gone, Tolkien’s mythology is truly over.

Arwen’s choice of her literal hill to die on brings The Lord of the Rings full circle. “The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen” forms one of the appendices’ last proper dramatic sequences, plugging an otherwise largely offstage love story into the text, marking the final exodus of elves from Middle-earth with Arwen’s death. Arwen’s grandmother Galadriel is the heart of Lothlórien: it’s only when both Galadriel and Aragorn are gone that Arwen goes to Lórien to die. The passing of Lórien marks the ending of elves in Middle-earth, particularly when Galadriel leaves. 

Even Lothlórien deteriorates. The stream of Nimrodel is beloved by the Silvan Elves, “remembering the rainbow on its falls, and the golden flowers that floated in its foam.” But when the Fellowship of the Ring arrives at it, “all is dark now and the Bridge of Nimrodel is broken now.”

Few locations are as metaphysically bound to individual characters as Lothlórien is to Galadriel. Historically, Galadriel is responsible for Lothlórien’s flourishing. She plants the land’s emblematic mallorn trees, where “in the autumn their leaves fall not, but turn to gold.” Lórien exists when Galadriel arrives, but it’s her presence that makes it the landmark it is. The realm’s spring causes the mallorn’s leaves to fall, “and then the boughs are laden with yellow flowers; and the floor of the wood is golden, and golden is the roof, and its pillars are of silver, for the bark of the trees is smooth and grey.”

In the First Age, the Silvan Elves, then called the Nandor, who resist the call to Valinor and settle in Wilderland, settle in Lothlórien. After spending much of the Second Age in Eregion, Galadriel and Celeborn arrive in Lothlórien, then called Lórinand. Their arrival is spurred by necessity — Galadriel has Nenya, the elven Ring of Adamant, which is invisible to many eyes, and protects Lothlórien, giving it its glory. But it also reminds her of Valinor, and makes her regret resisting the call to Valinor. The One Ring’s destruction undoes the Three Elven Rings, and thus causes Lothlórien to diminish.

Galadriel and her husband Celeborn’s arrival in Lórien is unclear — Celeborn’s background varies by text, sometimes placing him in Doriath, other times making him a Telerin elf. The one thing that’s clear about him is his importance to Galadriel. He’s one of the only husbands in Middle-earth whose narrative significance is largely defined by his wife, a pleasant divergence from the patriarchal norm. Celeborn’s absence from The Rings of Power’s first season is thus a weird absence, although not quite as weird as Galadriel flirting with her future son-in-law Elrond. 

Moreover, Galadriel and Celeborn rule as equals in the city of Caras Galadhon. They share duties in Lothlórien, greeting the Fellowship together. If anything, Galadriel seems to have more power. She gets the overwhelming majority of character development between the two. Furthermore, she convenes the White Council, sparking off much of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings’ plots, and gets to destroy Dol Guldur herself. She’s the only female character who drives Rings’ plot as much as Sauron, Gandalf, Aragorn, and Gollum.

As with many things in Tolkien, this is a doubled-edged sword. Galadriel’s venerability has an air of well-intentioned misogyny. For all her intense power, she’s classically feminine and “fair” in a way that indicates Tolkien sees her as the proper way to be a woman. This isn’t exclusively true — Éowyn is portrayed as a virtuous character while existing in a completely different mold from Galadriel. But classically feminine ladies of the court are the height of virtue in Tolkien. What’s more, they’re often embodiments of values rather than persons in themselves.

There’s a Catholic mysticism to this. Galadriel has a Marian quality in that she’s an utterly feminine piece of iconography who embodies how women should be. Mary is the central woman in Catholicism, a role that both liberates and limits her. Galadriel, as seminal a figure to Middle-earth as Mary is to the Gospels, occupies a similar role. 

Yet Galadriel complicates even the “divine feminine” role. She’s by no means a docile waif who offers words of comfort to the Fellowship. If anything, she shows Frodo the real perils of the Ring quest. If Frodo destroys the One Ring, its connections to the other rings, including Nenya, which drives Lothlórien’s beauty, fades, and takes the elvish kingdom with it.

“Do you not see now wherefore your coming is to us as the footstep of Doom?” Galadriel asks Frodo. “For if you fail, then we are laid bare to the Enemy. Yet if you succeed, then our power is diminished, and Lothlórien will fade, and the tides of Time will sweep it away.”

Yet this undoing of Middle-earth is what Galadriel has sought out for years. When she rejects the Valar's call, she becomes an apostate. Her tenure in Middle-earth is one of regret and penance, like a Catholic mystic self-confined to a convent. Tolkien even calls her “a penitent” in a letter. Galadriel brings beauty to Middle-earth, but that act of carrying beauty is a burden of suffering.

Much of this penitence is lost in Peter Jackson’s films. Cate Blanchett’s portrayal isn’t the problem — the way she plays Galadriel feels like it emerges from the text. But Boyens’, Walsh’s, and Jackson’s script understates the One Ring’s connection to the Elven rings, and thus Lothlórien, in a way which muddles the story’s dramatic tension. The infamous “instead of a dark lord, you would have a queen” scene becomes a moment of extremely overdone bathos instead of the moment of overcoming temptation that Tolkien writes it as. And even more unforgivably, it reduces Galadriel to a frail, reactive beacon of feminine virtue that she simply isn’t in Tolkien. In trying to make female characters more expressive, Walsh and Boyens ultimately reduce Galadriel’s agency, a move that weakens their entire trilogy.

In the book, the Mirror of Galadriel chapter — my favorite in The Lord of the Rings — is a moment of prophetic transparency where Galadriel, rather than simply being a conduit to the uncertainty of history, is shown to be an architect of the entire story. She knows exactly what’s happening in Middle-earth, but not where it will go. Her mirror — a bowl of water — is a particularly adept choice of symbols for her. Water is reflective, showing an observer what’s in front of them, but it’s also malleable. A rock plopping into water can distort it dreadfully. Galadriel’s role here is thus not to reveal the future, but to demonstrate how the mechanisms of history and myth are breaking down.

When Frodo offers Galadriel the Ring, it’s a resolution to her story. She has a moment of temptation, something she has long awaited, before ultimately surrendering to the divine power of the Valar. Yet this moment isn’t simply a woman caving to a higher power — it’s a moment of grace and humility, where a woman with power accepts her diminishing role in the world. It’s the most feminist scene Tolkien ever wrote, and possibly the ultimate diadem of his writing.

Galadriel comes closer to solving the problem of power than anyone in Wilderland. She has her own space, and wields authority well, utilizing it to grow the landscape rather than drive others into submission. She finds peace and harmony in the beauty of creation. Book II ends with a place defined by a character as seminal to The Lord of the Rings as Gollum. As we move to the next part of our adventure, we leave Wilderland’s mass of competing and declining powers, waving goodbye to the lady Galadriel, Tolkien’s conscience in Middle-earth. May her humility guide us through the rest of our strange journey.